Well there is space for quite a lot more it seems. On Tuesday night I attended a meeting to decide which of the bids made to this year’s local neighbourhood budget could be progressed. Two local residents had put in bids for trees in their street – Upper Tollington Park and Quernmore Road.
The Council’s arboriculturalist has found there is space for at least a dozen extra trees on both those roads. This highlighted to me how badly our area has been neglected since its Victorian heyday. Many of our local streets have empty tree pits (see picture left from Stapleton Hall Road) and many more tree pits have been tarmaced over. Apparently, some of these tree pits can never be refilled because wires and pipes have now been placed under them. The empty pit outside the ‘Instanbul Supermarket’ on Quernmore is an example of this.
So I am really pleased that we were able to approve a small budget for tree planting on these roads. And our Area Assembly chair Cllr Lyn Weber (Crouch End Ward) was successful in badgering the Council to put in some central funding to plant trees in these roads as well. With a bit of time we may be able to turn our streets back to the tree-lined avenues they once were.
January 28th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Hi Richard
While in principal I agree that more trees would be lovely can we make sure they are maintained? I live in a house (on UTP) that is undergoing its third subsidence claim in 10 years. The problem is clearly that the trees on the road are not pollarded regularly enough. All three claims have produced evidence that the problem is caused by the trees and yet they are still there, unmaintained – apart from the other day when the council thought they’d tarmac over the cracks caused by the roots of one of them. The tree pits are mostly from where trees have been taken out because of subsidence problems. My insurers tell me yearly pollarding rather than 3-yearly (if that in our case!) is needed.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Julia,
Thanks for commenting. I understand your concern. I’ve had quite detailed conversations with the Council’s tree specialists about this. They say that the trees they plant nowadays are specially picked varieties that don’t grow so large and aggressively that they cause subsidence. Apparently the problem is that in the old days the Council used plant all kinds of wonderful tree varieties, that were often grew to be just too big for their setting and have had to be removed (as is happening in Denton Road at present).
On the pollarding, there are a number of residents that complain it doesn’t happen enough – but the Council officers argue that the insurance companies are being overly cautious. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I think the issue needs a proper review so we can be certain we’re following best practice.
I hope this is helpful. Please email me your address if you want me to take up the issue with your tree with the Council.
Richard